This is the Line of Division

Main menu

Post navigation

iCal should be taken out back and shot

Pop quiz: How many different types of windows should a calendar app have for editing event info? 1

iCal has three. Three identical, redundant windows. You see, iCal’s designers weren’t confident that they knew how to design the UI for a calendar app, so they left that to the user.

Why stop at three?

You’ve got your “attached” window. That pops up when you double click an event. For some reason, you then have to click “edit” if you want to change any values there (in the image I’ve already clicked that button). Unless you click on the window and drag it far enough away from the event that it detaches. Then it becomes an “info” window.

You can also just get the “info” window by clicking on an event and choosing the “Get Info” menu item (CMD-I). That window has some funky behaviors, but that’s not the point of this post.

And finally, you’ve got your “inspector” window… that one is identical to the “info” window, except that like the prizewinner in The Highlander, there can be only one, and it’s intended to float over your calendar displaying the info for the last event you’ve clicked on.

Damnit, Apple. Get your shit together on this piece of crapware.

The answer is one per context. In iCal’s case, it has only one context, so one event editing window. ↩